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SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 2011
SFF.ORG.AU
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
12
SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 2011
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
SFF.ORG.AU
13
NORWEGIAN WOOD
NORUWEI NO MORI
THU 16 JUN 6.15PM STATE
FRI 17 JUN 1.50PM EV4
Japan | 133 mins | In Japanese with
English subtitles
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Director, Screenwriter: Tran Anh Hung | Producer:
Shinji Ogawa| Cast: Kenichi Matsuyama, Rinko
Kikuchi, Kiko Mizuhara | Distributor: Curious
Films
Tran Anh Hung (The Scent of Green Papaya, Cyclo) brings a perfectly honed outsider’s
eye to this delicate, visually ravishing adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s lyrical bestselling
novel. Set in the late-60s when Tokyo universities were rife with political unrest, Watanabe
(Kenichi Matsuyama) is a student whose deepening relationship with the emotionally fragile
Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi of Babel fame) is haunted by the spectre of a past tragedy. Caught
between her emotional and then geographical retreat and the expanding world of college
life, Watanabe’s loyalty is tested by adventurous best friend and dilettante Nagasawa (Tetsuji
Tamayama) and the enchanting and strikingly independent Midori (impressive newcomer
Kiko Mizuhara). The themes of awakening, loss and melancholy that ripple through both
the novel and The Beatles song from which it derives its name are perfectly accentuated by
an evocative score from Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, gorgeous production design and
Mark Lee Ping Bin’s lush cinematography (Lee is a regular collaborator of both Tran and Hou
Hsiao Hsien’s and shared credit with Christopher Doyle on In the Mood for Love). CS•
WINNER: BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY (MARK LEE PING BIN), ASIAN FILM AWARDS; BEST COMPOSER
(JONNY GREENWOOD), DUBAI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
TRAN ANH HUNG was born in Laos, and attended film school in France. His
directorial debut, The Scent of Green Papaya, won the Camera d’Or at the 1993
Cannes Film Festival and the Best First Film Award at the César Awards. His
second film, Cyclo, won Best Film at the 1995 Venice Film Festival.
SLEEPING BEAUTY
FRI 10 JUN 6.30PM STATE
SAT 11 JUN 12.00PM EV4
Australia | 101 mins | In English
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Director, Screenwriter: Julia Leigh | Producer: Jessica
Brentnall | Cast: Emily Browning, Rachael Blake,
Ewen Leslie | Distributor: Transmission Films
Julia Leigh – the award-winning Australian author of The Hunter and Disquiet – was
mentored by Jane Campion on her filmmaking debut, an unsettling erotic fairytale selected
for Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Emily Browning is alabaster perfection
as Lucy, a university student working numerous self-effacing jobs. She is socially isolated
from her housemates and fellow students and spends her limited free time ministering to the
peculiar desires of her morbidly depressed best friend Birdmann (Ewen Leslie). Her strong-
willed drift towards oblivion is anchored only by a need for money and she signs up with an
exclusive lingerie club run by the elegant Clara (Rachael Blake), whose controlling demeanor
is both intoxicating and comforting. Like a heroine from a film by Marguerite Duras or Luis
Buñuel (directors with whom Leigh shares an austere intellectualism and visual mannerism
respectively), Lucy is a sexual and thinking being, neither innocent nor totally complicit.
Mysterious and bewitching, her disruptive impulses derive from a mix of boredom and
discontentedness and ultimately lead her into a dangerous, heady slumber from which, like
the titular princess, she will be awakened. CS•
OFFICIAL COMPETITION, CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2011
FILMMAKER GUESTS: JULIA LEIGH, JESSICA BRENTNALL, CAST AND CREW
JULIA LEIGH is a novelist and filmmaker based in Sydney. She was named
2000 Young Novelist of the Year by the Sydney Morning Herald, and “one of
21 writers for the 21st century” by The Observer. Sleeping Beauty is her debut
feature.
THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD
SUN 12 JUN 7.05PM STATE
MON 13 JUN 10.00AM STATE
USA, Albania, Denmark, Italy | 108 mins | In
Albanian with English subtitles
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Director: Joshua Marston | Screenwriter: Joshua
Marston, Andamion Murataj | Producer: Paul
Mezey| Cast: Refet Abazi, Tristan Halilaj, Sindi
Laçej | Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Joshua Marston – whose directorial debut Maria Full of Grace (SFF 2004) was set between
Colombia and New York – sinks his incisive allegorist’s teeth into the pulsating veins of
another culture in this suspenseful twist on the cautionary tale. Buoyed by life and its
possibilities, 17-year-old Nik is a carefree teenager in small-town northern Albania with
a crush on the school beauty and ambitions to start his own internet café. His world is
suddenly up-ended when his father and uncle become entangled in a land dispute that leaves
a fellow villager murdered. According to the Kanun, a 15th-century code of law, this entitles
the dead man’s family to take the life of a male from Nik’s family as retribution. His uncle
in jail and his father in hiding, Nik is the prime target and confined to the home while his
studious 15-year-old sister Rudina is forced to leave school and take on their father’s bread
delivery rounds. Working with non-professional actors, Marston’s achieves a resounding
authenticity, boldly contrasting antiquated traditions with the lives of the young people
whose future is put at risk by them. CS•
WINNER: BEST SCREENPLAY, BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL
FILMMAKER GUEST: JOSHUA MARSTON
JOSHUA MARSTON is an American screenwriter and director. He has an MFA
in filmmaking from New York University, and has been a recipient of the
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. His first film, Maria Full of
Grace (SFF 2004), won awards at Sundance and Berlin, an Independent Spirit
Award, and received an Academy Award® nomination.
A SEPARATION
JODAEIYE NADER AZ SIMIN
MON 13 JUN 6.50PM STATE
WED 15 JUN 2.10PM EV4
Iran | 123 mins | In Farsi with English subtitles
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Director, Screenwriter, Producer: Asghar Farhadi |
Cast: Sareh Bayat, Sarina Farhadi, Leila Hatami |
Distributor: Hopscotch Films
This utterly compelling, emotionally resonant drama from Asghar Farhadi – director of About
Elly (SFF 2009) – was awarded Best Film and both acting prizes for its superb ensemble
cast at the Berlin Film Festival. Not exactly out-of-love, Nader and Simin are attempting to
divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. They have acquired visas to emigrate
from Iran – Simin is anxious to ensure a better future for their 10-year-old daughter Termeh,
but Nader refuses to leave his elderly father who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. When
the judge refuses to formalise their separation, Simin resolutely departs the family home,
leaving the obstinate Nader to contract the services of a housekeeper. Razieh is a devout,
impoverished woman who tends to the apartment and Nader’s father with her own four-year-
old daughter in tow. When Nader returns one day to find his father alone and compromised,
his fury leads to an altercation that has unexpected and devastating consequences. Propelled
by an acute attention to class, religious and gender differences, Farhadi’s mathematically
precise script interrogates the very basis of truth and ethics, its imploding narrative movement
the perfect metaphor for the social and political discord that plagues contemporary Iran. CS•
WINNER: BEST FILM, BEST ACTRESS (ENSEMBLE) AND BEST ACTOR (ENSEMBLE), BERLIN FILM
FESTIVAL; BEST FILM AND AUDIENCE AWARD, FAJR FILM FESTIVAL
ASGHAR FARHADI was born in Isfahan, Iran. Whilst at school he took courses
at the Iranian Young Cinema Society, before graduating with a Master’s Degree
in Film Direction from Tehran University. He won the Silver Bear for Best
Director at the 2009 Berlinale for About Elly (SFF 2009).
CAIRO 678
WED 15 JUN 6.30PM STATE
THU 16 JUN 2.05PM EV4
Egypt | 103 mins | In Arabic with
English subtitles
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Director, Screenwriter: Mohamed Diab | Producer:
Bushra Rozza | Cast: Nelly Karim, Bushra, Nahed
El Sebaï | Sales Agent: Fortissimo Films
Mohamed Diab’s bold, uncompromising debut feature film tackles the issue of sexual
harassment in Egypt – a subject veiled in collective silence – with a rigorous eye for everyday
detail, a potent serve of anger and a deliciously wry sense of humour. Fayza (Egyptian pop
sensation Bushra) is a devout, working-class wife and mother who can barely endure the
frequent molestations experienced on her daily bus trip. Seba (Nelly Karim) is a wealthy
jewellry designer who starts a self-defense class for women after she is abused at a football
match. Nelly (Nahed El Sebaï), a budding comedian attacked when crossing the road
from her fiancée’s car to her family home, is the first woman in Cairo to file a sexual
harassment lawsuit. Unsupported by their loved ones, the legal system or the media, their
lives unexpectedly intersect and a vendetta is hatched. Enter the sardonic, quick-witted
detective Esam (Maged El Kedwany) assigned to solve the case of a series of attacks on Bus
678. With full regard for the sense of violation each woman feels, Diab’s taut, thoroughly
engrossing script avoids didacticism, deftly navigating religious, secular and class differences
to foreground the multitude of conflicting angles on this controversial topic. CS•
MOHAMED DIAB is an Egypt-based screenwriter and director. He attended
the New York Film Academy. Cairo 678 is the fifth film he has written, and is
his directorial debut.
THE FUTURE
SAT 11 JUN 6.30PM STATE
SUN 12 JUN 10.00AM STATE
USA, Germany | 91 mins | In English
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Director, Screenwriter: Miranda July | Producers:
Roman Paul, Gerhard Meixner, Gina Kwon |
Cast: Miranda July, Hamish Linklater, David
Warshofsky | Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Captivating filmmaker, performer and video artist Miranda July embraces the beauty and
absurdity of everyday life with “an artistic eye wide open.” (The New York Times). As peculiar
and endearing as her Cannes and Sundance-winning debut, Me and You and Everyone We
Know, July’s second feature film follows Los Angeles couple Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish
Linklater) who decide to live out their dreams in the 30 days before their freedom is curtailed
by the arrival of newly adopted cat Paw Paw – the film’s feline narrator! Quitting their jobs as
dance instructor and IT-support guru, and disconnecting their internet, the pair get panicky
in the face of unlimited choice and shift into realities that threaten to become as mundane as
the one they are trying to transform. Sliding along the edges of romance, satire and suburban
horror, July creates an unsettling film about fear and how it undermines our aspirations
while retaining her characteristic playfulness. Sophie’s attempts to film her dance routines for
YouTube are amongst the film’s many delights. CS•
FILMMAKER GUEST: MIRANDA JULY
MIRANDA JULY is an artist, author and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Her work has shown at MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Whitney Bien-
nial. Her debut feature film, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), won
awards at both the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals. The Future is her
second feature film.